by G Lawrence
The right to rule, the right and order of succession, was a reverend one; a holy estate passed by God unto the heirs of a king’s body. Mary was the elder daughter of our father, and whatever differences there may be between us, she had the greater right to hold the crown should our brother be taken into the arms of God.
Mary was the rightful heir.
I made this plain to my advisors; I would not take a position over my sister as the legal heir even if it were offered to me.
Perhaps I made it too plain… too public. For the events that were then to unfold were almost made of a fairy story.
I think that both Mary and I became suspicious over the plans at court in May of 1553. Anyone who did not become suspicious should be called a fool.
In quick succession, our cousin Lady Jane Grey, then barely fifteen, was married to Warwick’s fourth son Guilford, then Catherine Grey, Jane’s younger sister, was married to Lord Herbert. Catherine Dudley, Warwick’s daughter, was married to Lord Hastings. Margaret Clifford, another Grey family cousin, was betrothed to Warwick’s brother. A lot of marriages and alliances, made in a short space of time.
Jane and Catherine Grey and Margaret Clifford were in line to the throne, following Mary and me as descendants of Mary Tudor, our father’s youngest sister.
Lord Hastings was of the direct descendant of the Plantagenet kings who ruled before the Tudors.
“Warwick is squaring up both his pawns and his queens,” said Denny in a low whisper to me when we heard the news. I nodded but I did not answer. We had a loyal house at Hatfield, but I wanted no talk to take my servants or myself into trouble again.
“He is arranging his chess board,” said Cecil quietly.
“Ready for a strike,” Parry said, nodding.
Something momentous was going on. Mary knew it as well as I did, I was sure. Exactly what Warwick had in mind, I hardly knew, but making sure his family was entwined securely with all other options to the throne did not bode well for Mary and me as the sometime-bastard daughters of Henry VII as heirs.
Just as it did not bode well for the health of our brother.
We had no news of Edward, no real news. Letters were formal and sent advising us of his good health and plans for future festivities. The lack of his presence in public and the whispers of illness gave lie to these notes scribbled by Councillors.
The truth could only be seen through the lies. And it was a hard truth. There could be little other reason for all the subterfuge and the indecently fast marriages… Edward was dying. There was no other explanation for the events that were unfolding with unprecedented speed. My brother was dying, and Warwick and those with him were up to something, something that would not benefit either me or my Catholic sister.
Suspicion was forming in my mind. Somehow and some way, they were going to try and depose us of our positions.
Warwick was going to try and cut us from the line of lawful succession.
We would have to be ready, and I would have to think carefully on any action here undertaken. For the outcome of this one moment in time could decide the path of my life forever, or it could bring about the moment of my death, much sooner.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Hatfield House
1553
Those early summer months in 1553 were a mist of confusion, lies and subterfuge.
I kept to Hatfield and brought our informants ever close to us to hear their news. We heard much, and none of it good. They told us that Mary was being lulled and cozened, not allowed to see her brother, but told only soft lies by clever Councillors and Warwick.
We received whispers that our father’s will had been changed by Edward to make the Grey girls, our cousins, the legal heirs of England instead of Mary and me. We heard whispers, too, that many questioned the legality of this “device,” as it was called. We got word that the King was desperately ill, despite what the official papers told us; that he coughed black bile and yellow pus; that his body was wasted and he was clinging barely onto life with gnarly and emaciated hands.
In the shade of all these truths, lies and half-truths I resolved to be patient and wait. Who knew which was really the truth and which the fiction? But I suspected much, and none of it good.
In myself and in the quaking centre of my soul, I wished that my brother was not dying. I wished that he, like my father before him, would hold together the rival factions of our land and set forth a rule that brought us peace.
But Edward was made of a different mettle to that of our father. Where our father had ruled with charisma and excitement, Edward was stern and dour. Where our father lit up or cast down the very atmosphere of a palace, Edward was the King relegated to the shadows of everyone’s imagination.
I could see why the common people did not love him as they had done our father. The people want a show, and for all the power that one in the public eye may hold, they are little more than a dancing monkey, bent to the whim and will of those who watch them.
Power belongs to a king because the people allow him to hold it. Power belongs to those who have learnt the dance which will make the people warm to them, watch them… even fear them. But Edward was not made of the same spirit as our father had been. He could engender loyalty perhaps, but not love.
Edward, my little brother, was dying. Another of my family was leaving my life. I knew it as well as any other… why else would Warwick be aligning his chess pieces so carefully and with such un-unabashed speed? But I wished it was not so… Edward and I had grown up together, shared our lives as children, listened, learned and laughed together. I loved my pale little brother as I had loved our father, as I had loved Katherine… as I had loved my own mother and all those others I had lost.
Life is about losing people in the end. If you live long enough, you see everyone you loved leave you.
I was mourning for my brother even before I knew he was dead. Remembering his soft voice when we read our Latin together, hearing his grave tone when he found out he was the King, watching him ride at the rings in the mock tourneys he was so fond of, being enfolded in his arms on the day they came to tell us that our father was dead.
His Sweet Sister Temperance… I should never have a more inappropriate title gifted to me than that one, and therefore perhaps I remember it the best of all that have been given to me. I might be calm and temperate on the outside, especially when in his presence. But I was anything but temperate and mild inside the prison of my body.
We had no news for a long time.
Then, on the 7th of July the capital was suddenly reinforced by hundreds of guards. On the 8th, the city government was informed of the King’s death and on the 10th, they brought my young cousin, the scared and sweet little girl that I remembered from our days in Katherine Parr’s household, Lady Jane Grey, to the Tower of London and proclaimed that she was Queen.
Due to Denny’s men placed to ride to Hatfield with all speed, we heard the news fast.
I ordered that our remaining men, working as informants, be taken out of the city immediately; there was nothing more they could do to enlighten us. The plan had been made clear, and Warwick had moved his pieces into play. The city was closing down, preparing for the trouble they knew was going to break. It was better that we had our allies away from possible arrest and close to us.
I took my spies back from London and sent them to gather news elsewhere in the country. Warwick and the Council had played their hand now; we had to see what others would do.
Mary had come back to her house at Hunsdon in recent months, but now she fled that house with all her guard as she heard that the Council, headed by Warwick, was sending a detachment of guards to take her into custody. They did not want the Catholic Princess, the rightful heir, to escape just as they pulled off their coup.
But they did not catch her. My wily elder sister escaped their clutches.
I could not help but laugh when I imagined my older sister riding out to her estates in East Anglia on the back of a horse running like
the wind, with the Council’s guards flailing and hopping behind her like the toads they were.
Mary proclaimed herself Queen. Her standard was raised in the hotbed of Catholic unrest and rebellion that was East Anglia. She had chosen well, my sister, her hand surely guided by the will of God as she chose where to start her conquest for the crown. She was the rightful heir and she was not going to be stopped now.
Denny advised that we move. We should either fly to Mary’s side, or retreat to an area not so near to London. It was a dangerous time.
“Stop, sir,” I said holding up my hand even as he went to tell Parry to issue those commands. “We cannot risk being premature on either side. If we move anywhere then we shall be suspected of something. Should my sister fail to win the day, then my cousin will remain queen. Should my cousin lose, then my sister will be Queen. I would little like to lose my head on either side by choosing to support the other prematurely. Caution costs nothing.”
“But the Council will eventually send guards here,” he said in exasperation. “They have missed capturing one heir. They will not lose another.”
I rose and smiled at him, placing my hand on his arm, “but if we flee my lord, we will have to chose a side, or be accused of treason by both, and that could be disastrous at this early stage.” I shook my head and looked at the men about me. I felt strangely calm despite the rushed beating of my heart.
“Do not worry my lord. I have another option, a course of action which was shown to me by a lady who showed most excellent intelligence in the face of mortal danger.” As I spoke, I undid the white long-hanging sleeves at the back of my dress, pulled one off and handed it to him as I started to undo the other.
Denny and Parry both stared at me open mouthed as I started to slowly undress before them.
“I am grievously ill, my lords,” I said calmly. “And should any contingent of any army arrive here to take possession of me, they will have to do so without my consent. They can lift the whole bed out of my house if they are able, but I will not be seen to go willingly with either side. If I commit to either side now, I will place myself in grave danger. But if I commit to neither, I cannot be said to have acted treasonously. Now, bring my ladies to me, for with the death of my brother I am suddenly taken sick unto death.”
I paused and eyed them carefully. “And you will make most sure that my grave illness is not information that stays within these four walls… Do I make myself clear?”
Denny suddenly grinned, from ear to ear like a small delighted dog. Parry was still watching me undress with quite a lot of distraction, but he managed to right himself. “It shall be as you say, your highness,” he said.
I smiled at him. “When one studies history, my lord, one learns that there is something most great commanders did that separated them from the others.”
“Which is what, my lady?” asked Parry.
I paused and looked out onto the lawns and hedges of my beloved Hatfield. It was a warm and balmy summer’s day, and hard to believe that the country was erupting in a riot of civil war over which Queen should reign over it.
I turned back and smiled at him. “The great commanders knew which battles to fight and which to avoid,” I said. They bowed to me with respect, smiles all over their faces.
“Now, send Kat and my maids to me. I must be put to bed immediately. None shall be admitted unless they force the door. All news will be brought to me covertly. I will be kept informed of all that is going on, but everyone in this house apart from you must believe I am sick unto death. I will not have my servants placed in danger. It is up to you gentlemen to make my household believe lies which may save their lives.”
I sent them off and went to bed. From my bed I should see what needed to be done next. There was no sense in jumping into one camp or another, not yet.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Hatfield House
Summer 1553
During those short weeks of unrest, as England quivered on the edges of civil war, I thought on the figure of my little cousin a lot. Jane Grey, the girl Warwick had proclaimed Queen.
I later heard, that when the title was announced to rest on her head, that monarchs around the globe had be drawn family trees to see where she fitted in. As the daughter of the daughter of my father’s sister, you can understand their confusion; especially when there were two direct heirs to the throne alive and well.
Such a farce had been made and they had put her at the head of it! How willing was she, I wondered, to take a throne that was not legally hers over the rights of her cousins, women she had known since she was little?
She and I had spent time together under Katherine. Although I could not say I had a lot of affection for her, mainly due to my own jealousy when Katherine preferred her company to mine, I could not help but feel sympathy for her now. Packaged off like a brood-mare to marry Warwick’s fourth son, Guilford Dudley, used as a pawn for the ambitions of Warwick. No doubt the Duke had arranged this marriage not only to enable him to rule through her, but so that his son might in turn become a king and his grandchildren would inherit the throne. Warwick had moved fast to ensure that on the death of Edward, his own power would not only remain intact, but increase.
She was a clever girl, Jane. She must have known that the Dudleys were plotting something. But what options did she have? Her family agreed the match with Guilford, a horribly spoilt young man by all reports, and she could have done little but agree. It was not within her rights, not in reality, to refuse the match approved of by her parents.
Women are bartered and bought in this way in marriage. Her own views would have meant very little to ambitious parents such as the Greys.
And now she was stuck, put in the position of Queen, married to an oaf, or so all around court agreed, and in the grip of the mighty Duke Northumberland, Earl of Warwick, the queen-maker as they were laughingly calling him in the villages. None of the common people understood who she was, nor what her claim was to the throne. Warwick might have thought he had neatly sewn up this package but it was not so. He had underestimated the opinion of the people of England. Such a sham… and my little pale and clever cousin was placed right in the heart of it. The greatest traitor to this country was a tiny girl, now but sixteen, more interested in books than in wielding power.
No, it was the Duke himself who was the master of these ill times; Warwick; Northumberland; Dudley; John… anything you called him it all spelt out the same thing.
Traitor.
Thousands of men flocked to Mary’s banners; her pennants streaming in the breeze of the summer air, her passionate and devoted speeches brought men seething to her side. A multitude of men, common and noble alike were already behind her, beside her… with her, in mind, body and spirit. The daughter of Great Harry was in need, they called. The daughter of Bluff King Hal was set aside for a woman they had never heard of… was it to be borne? No!
Mary was never as well-liked by the people as I. She was too rigid, too dour and too severe. But in those days after the death of our brother, the days when she was forced to fight for her throne; in those days she stood out before her people, her maiden’s hair flowing in the wind, as she spoke to them of her right to the throne as the daughter of Henry VIII and the statutes he put into place. In those days they loved her, they cheered her, believed in her and they swore to fight and die for her as their true Queen.
In those days, you could see she was truly a descendant of her warrior-like grandmother, Isabella of Castile.
Mary’s troops drew together thousands of the common man. It is the common people that give a king the power he holds, and they gave that power to Mary.
They understood little of history, of maps or maths, of philosophy or Latin, but they understood right from wrong. They understood, as I did, the holy right of kingship. Jane was no queen of theirs, and Warwick should never rule over them as he sought to. Protestant and Catholic alike joined together to march with the army of my older sister. Glowing with a beauty that sh
e would never know again as she basked in both the love and outrage of her people, Mary rode at the head of them like a goddess, flanked by the loyal troops of England.
I cheered them silently. The right to rule should not be questioned of a monarch, not when the alternative is so far behind in right of succession. I had refused to counter such a thought, as should anyone who knew right from wrong.
But still, I did not rise from my bed.
I had learnt to be cautious, and whichever side I joined, I was not at this time the most important figurehead, nor the least expendable. It was not in my best interests to enter into this conflict, yet. In my bed, sick, I was committed to neither side, and so could weather this storm without pledging my life to a side. Whichever won, I would still be here to press my own claim, when and if, the time came.